


Mirrored Image

by TheShinySword



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Lesbians with Swords - Freeform, More so than the last one but like I got you I'll explain it, Overcoming your child hood trauma with S O N G, Revstar AU, or at least trying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:27:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28411635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShinySword/pseuds/TheShinySword
Summary: The Revue of Vanity will be starting soon. Chisato has trained her whole life for this moment. Moca just woke up from a nap. One always wins, the other chooses to lose. But perhaps talent and hard work are not so alien to one another as they seem.
Relationships: Aoba Moca/Shirasagi Chisato
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33





	Mirrored Image

**Author's Note:**

> I might change this title, not sold on this title.

Schink.

“Position Zero.”

She left the sword behind. Tip buried in the center of the taped pink T on the stage floor, standing like a ghost light still gleaming in the dark when the show was over and the actors were supposed to be long gone.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

“Wait!”

Stop.

Her would-be scene partner clawed at the curtain covering her long face and longer limbs until purple hair was once again revealed and the desperation in those eyes was almost enough to make a girl reconsider.

But the fire in the actress’ violet eyes had been purposefully dosed and she watched without seeing. Why was Kaoru still talking? Why was she still here? Everything there was to say had been said on the stage. There was nothing left in the script.

One word. Improvisation.

“Pathetic.”

Exit Stage Left: Chisato Shirasagi.

* * *

“I don’t get how you Stage Girls can eat this much and still look like that!”

“The secret, Hii-chan, is that every night Moca-chan gets on her knees at the side of her bed and she clasps her hands together and Moca-chan says ‘ooooh Banabo-sama, please please please take the fat away from me. Give it to Hii-chan, she looks very cold’.”

“MOCA!”

“She doesn’t do that Himari. Moca’s too busy being asleep by seven.”

Moca Aoba, 2nd year stage girl and lifelong asshole, leaned back as far as the cafeteria chair would let her—just enough to potentially be dangerous but practically just fine—and grinned over her four childhood friends enjoying their lunch. Her own tray was already empty but if her estimation was right (it was) the extra bread roll on Himari’s tray, the miso soup on Ran’s and half the soba on Tsugumi’s would soon make up her second lunch. There was a whole at the bottom of her stomach that couldn’t be filled but she’d damned if she ever stopped trying. “Moca-chan is a growing girl~ it’s impossible to be this beautiful without twelve full hours of sleep~.”

“Is it growing sleep or beauty sleep?” Tomoe Udagawa, 2nd year backstage crew and Moca’s only friend capable of cleaning her own plate, squinted with adorable confusion.

“That’s why Moca-chan sleeps for twelve hours. Six of each.”

“Second year training must be a lot more lenient than first year was,” Himari Uehara, 2nd year backstage crew, former Stage Girl in training and current bread delivery service, teased as she slipped her roll onto Moca’s tray.

And there was the miso soup sloppily clunked into the corner, precious nutrients spilling over the edge. “Moca gives us a bad rep.” Ran Mitake, 2nd year stage girl, best friend, roommate and sometimes babysitter, glared with something in the neighborhood of affection.

“Don’t worry we’ll keep y’all lookin’ good,” Tomoe winked, “My sets and Himari’s costumes for this year’s Seisho Festival? They’ll blow your mind.”

Moca chewed on the mediocre roll as they all politely ignored the flash of pain over Himari’s expression. They’d entered Seisho’s competitive acting program together or at least tried to. Tomoe hadn’t made it past the auditions but had years of helping with their hometown festivals to fall back on for the backstage program. Himari had struggled to keep up with the other three for a year and ultimately decided to drop out. There was no shame in working backstage, they all told her. But they also knew she took it as a loss.

The bread was stale. They all had disappointments to live with. At least Moca could dunk hers in the soup.

Hmm? Something was missing. Bread roll, miso soup… where was Moca’s soba? A quick glance over revealed it still languishing on it’s original owner’s tray as the girl’s attention was devoted to her phone and not her dear _starving_ childhood friend.

“Tsugu~.” Moca curled around Ran’s back, “Were you texting Sayo again?”

And finally, the last actor in their scene, Tsugumi Hazawa, second year stage girl and newly devoted girlfriend. “I-I wasn’t.” The denial came on instinct, but the truth quickly followed, “I was...”

“Mmm hmm, mmm hmm, Moca-chan’s gonna cry.”

“Moca-chan!” Tsugumi said, with real concern.

“Moca.” Ran said, with a warning groan.

“I suppose I can forgive you,” Moca sniffed magnanimously. “For the rest of your noodles.”

The soba was placed in her wiggling fingers with an affectionate sigh. It was always going to have gone there.

Ran snagged the bowl away, “You’re going to be miserable at dance practice if you eat all that.”

“Moca-chan will be miserable at dance practice no matter what, so she might as well be full~.”

“Man I wish I could see Moca dance,” Tomoe laughed. “Why don’t you ever go out for a lead part? You’re always playing guards and maids.”

“If Moca-chan tried too hard her great talent would overwhelm everyone.” It wasn’t easy being the exact middle of her class. But Moca worked harder than she wanted to keep it that way. “And then Ran would get so lonely!” It was more fun playing bit parts with Ran and Tsugumi then wasting time on center stage.

Besides, if she had to outshine them, she’d rather not shine at all.

“I just wanna see someone other than Kaoru and Chisato take the leads, ya know?”

WHACK! “Ow! Himari!”

WHACK! “Tomoe Udagawa you take that BACK!” WHACK! Himari smacked Tomoe’s arm a third time. “Kaoru-san is the coolest, the hottest, the—”

“Wouldn’t that make her the lukewarmest?”

WHACK! “That was Ran not me!”

“Kaoru-san is an amazing actress and if any of you dare try to take that top star spot from her, I will put questionable holes in all of your costumes!” Himari snipped her trusty cloth scissors in a final threat.

Three pairs of hands raised in surrender, the last pair too filled with noodles to move. Himari’s threats always had weight, Moca had spent a performance of Hamlet with her Rosencrantz standing strategically to keep Ran’s Guildenstern’s suddenly bare armpits covered after Ran questioned a color swatch choice. What Himari would do if her idol’s status was shaken was unimaginable.

“Kaoru-san’s cool, she can stay!” Tomoe gulped, “Moca can take Chisato’s roles.”

It was a testament to her friends’ love and affection that none of them laughed hysterically at the idea of Moca Aoba taking a role that would otherwise go to Chisato Shirasagi, former child star, current first ranked student and all around drop dead gorgeous diva. So Moca laughed hysterically instead, nearly choking on the last of the soba slurping down her throat. “No danger of that~.”

Ran muttered it so quietly Moca wasn’t sure she was supposed to hear it, “Not with the way you fight.”

There was a bear in the basement of the school and she had been very clear about what they weren’t supposed to do. Moca wasn’t sure what kind of fine a magical pink bear could charge but she wasn’t interested in finding out secondhand through Ran. Her foot found her ankle and Ran’s mouth grunted shut.

“Moca-chan’s sorry to say she must bid you all ‘adieu’,” Moca rose from the table with her emptied tray and a sorrowful wave.

“Moca. Where are you going?”

“A little extra nap for my health.” Her lips half curled lazily, “It’s gonna be a late night.”

* * *

Sunset in the practice room. There was probably something poetic about it. But as Chisato practiced along the bar to the beat of silent music all she could think about was how annoying it was to have such little daylight in the autumn.

Her yellow leotard fit too snuggly in the spaces that should breathe. Always yellow. Daffodils. Lemons. Piss. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. The discomfort made the dancing better, she lied to herself. There was some twisted pride in having her own leotard, separate from the school standard, and she wouldn’t give it up because she’d stupidly indulged herself.

She was the best—without argument—during the daytime and the best—without challenger—at night as well. Chisato had to push herself because not one other stage girl dared to try.

“Chisato?”

Not one.

“Kaoru.” Chisato didn’t pause her dancing. She didn’t even glance at the lanky figure trying to interrupt her precious practice.

“Why are you dancing? Our play is Midsummer’s.”

“And the next will not be.” The practice would never end, although there was no one left to overtake and no one she needed to defend her place against. Still, the practice would never end.

Somehow, Kaoru did not vanish as Chisato shut her eyes. “Can we talk? About last night?”

“Such short words? Did I manage to beat the loquaciousness out of your sesquipedalian brain?”

Kaoru stopped trying to follow Chisato. “Perchance I—”

Heels screamed against the polished practice floor as Chisato twisted. “That was not,” another squeaking shriek for punctuation, “an invitation to start again.”

The words were cruel but the world was crueler. Kaoru would have to learn that.

She stopped, body held up by an invisible arm, hands around an invisible waist. Visible Kaoru watching. Chisato learned more alone than with a partner.

**_Deedle deedle doodle doo._ **

The only sound in the world Chisato would stop practicing for.

“It’s not a rematch Kaoru. If you can’t keep up with me.” She said it like it was a sentence on its own, not an orphaned clause with no condition. If you can’t keep up with me. Did she just want to offer the possibility that Kaoru could still change? Did she hope there was still growth left for Kaoru Seta?

Chisato always longed for a rival but found herself cursed with devoted friends instead.

Aya and Kanon, Eve and Maya, they loved her, they cherished her, and they would never, ever push her. Hina’s eyes were set elsewhere, at the big sister who would never look her way.

And Kaoru. Kaoru would pretend she was different, pretend she was just as motivated as Chisato but she was too kind, she was too big hearted to match Chisato’s drive. No one could match Chisato. It was not bragging. It was an agonizing lack.

Chisato waited and Kaoru… did nothing. 

Exit Stage Right: Chisato Shirasagi

* * *

“Are you seriously asleep?”

Something hard and lumpy struck Moca’s head—Ran’s book bag, she knew its imprint on the back of her head well. With an exaggerated groan and yawn—a stage girl must always perform after all—Moca rolled over to the very edge of her bed dragging her blankets along with her. Moca Aoba’s best chocolate coronet impression. “Ran~ I’m tiired.”

Ran rolled her eyes, slipping off her uniform jacket and reaching for something comfortable in the closet. “You are not.”

She wasn’t but Ran wasn’t supposed to know that. Honestly, Moca hadn’t even been sleeping, she tucked the new script—A Midsummer Night’s Dream—she’d dutifully been reading to her chest and rolled it up so tight Ran would never know any better. Things worked better like that. Better when her friends had no idea Moca enjoyed the things they struggled with.

Moca threw on a smiling face and wiggled upright. “Hehe. I’m a growing stage girl~.”

“If you grow another inch I’ll quit the program.”

“Scary~ Scaary.”

Ran shrugged on a t-shirt and sighed. “What if you slept through the phone call?”

Without wanting to, both sets of eyes drifted to the phone waiting ominously on Moca’s desk. The void of the screen offered some sense of relief for now. No swirling bear getting its furry rocks off to an underground teenage girl fight club.

Moca smiled helplessly. “Maybe we don’t have to fight to the death tonight?”

“Moca.” Ran’s expression was caught somewhere between pity and concern. “They’re not fights to the death.”

“Maybe not when you fight but have you seen Sayo recently?” Moca’s voice dropped low, as close to a threat as she would bear aim at Ran.

“I—” Moca could hear Ran’s teeth grind slowly and then quickly stop as her wide eyes turned to a glare. “Yes. I have. In class twenty minutes ago.”

A wink. “Are you sure~?”

A warning. “Moca.”

“Heh, heh.” In an explosion of cloth Moca burst from her comforter, slipping her script behind her back and under her pillow. She’d already memorized the thing anyway. “Just kidding.” Hands raised, open and empty. “Moca-chan’s never even won a duel.”

“Really?” Ran said, eyebrows arched.

“Really. Moca-chan doesn’t do well under pressure.” She hopped out of bed, trying not to sneak a glance at her phone again and leaned too close to her best friend. “Why? You hoping to get an easy win off me? You’ll have to work harder than that Ran~.”

Ran brushed her away. “Honestly Moca. I thought you might take this seriously.”

“You know me better than that~~”

_**Deedle deedle doodle doo.** _

They turn to their phones in unison. With bitter-sweet satisfaction, Moca regards the bear spinning on her screen. At least Ran will be spared another meaningless fight for brilliance she can’t afford to waste.

Moca bows. “That’s my cue.”

* * *

How many times has Moca taken the long way down past the basement and the basement’s basement in the forgotten elevator’s creaking chamber? The first time for Lisa to help put that songbird behind her. The second time for Sayo so she could see what stood before her. The third… Tsugumi, for the same reason in reverse. And the fourth… Well, this was the fourth then.

The elevator shuddered still. The doors squealed open, shedding a hundred years of rust as though it hadn’t opened for Moca just last week. Moca stepped forward as lightly as if she did not expect at any moment the floor would give out and everything (nothing) would change.

Thunk.

But of course it did and Moca fell.

Down.

Down.

Down.

She’d given up on understanding the mechanics of the magic below their school and how the very air could strip her bare before recloaking her in a costume finer than anything Himari could whip up. A grey-silver jacket, too militaristic for Moca’s taste but nice, too nice for her really. Then the skirt, matching in color with a length chosen by some pervert with no respect for decency—more to Moca’s taste. But the only piece Moca cared to keep was the little cloak around her neck attached by a gold cord to her collar—useless as a coat but it’d make a comfortable blanket. Someday she would pull it from that bear’s paws, she was at least owed a souvenir.

Then she landed flat on her back, hand tight around the most pathetic little blade anyone had ever seen. Long thin blade, handle guard half the length of the blade curled up just slightly on the ends. How exactly was she supposed to win a fight with a parrying dagger?

Eh. Didn’t matter. Moca didn’t plan on winning anyway. She hopped to her feet swiftly, flicking the blade up and spinning it about her hand. Just on playing therapist long enough to learn a few interesting tidbits. Who would be her patient for the day?

Moca rotated her shoulder and looked around her stage for the day. Theater in the round. How modern or perhaps how antiquated. Time and circles blah blah blah. Thick velvet curtains hung over the center but before Moca could wonder over their concealed secrets someone—not something at least—coughed.

Moca’s lips rose in recognition. “Hello.”

Her co-star did not. The top star of Seisho Academy class 2-A did not tilt her head or narrow her eyes—even her micro expressions’ micro expressions were under complete control. Chisato Shirasagi existed on a plane Moca could not imagine. Moca wondered what she would sing about. Probably not anything as sunshiny as her yellow costume.

Her weapon was a rapier. Long and very, terribly pointy. Ran swore the weapons were stage props but Moca was pretty positive she didn’t want that thing anywhere near her soft and squishy bits. Lisa and Tsugumi had had little interest in an actual fight and Sayo… well, Moca was lucky Sayo either wasn’t half as good a shot as she thought or was much kinder than anticipated.

Without a word, Chisato launched at Moca, blade first. Those muscles weren’t for show—they were for dancing and Moca was going to be her partner for the evening.

The instincts Moca tried to pretend she didn’t have flared to life. She sidestepped at the last possible second, raising her parrying dagger to catch Chisato’s. Their blades hissed together. Moca opened her mouth to quip—

—but Chisato wasn’t the quipping sort. She flowed into her next attack—a whipping strike aimed at Moca’s leg—as if Moca’s block were a choreographed move.

Moca danced out of the way, eyes wide. “You’re not going to sing?”

For the first time Chisato showed unpracticed emotion, as if she finally realized Moca was a person and not a series of lines and stage directions. “Why would I sing?” The blade quivered, held out at chest height.

“I dunno.” Moca flipped her dagger in hand. “People always sing out their feelings during these things, get all the bad juju out and shit. I’ll wait, you can do your song and dance then slice off my cape and we go our separate ways.”

Chisato’s face fell from interest to bored. “Are you offering yourself to me?”

“Interesting choice of words,” Moca paused. Wasn’t an unappealing concept really. “More like free therapy tho. And a free win. If you care about that sort of thing.”

“What a waste of time.” Chisato lunged on her last word.

A smarter person might have let Chisato have her way and left without any holes in their limbs but Moca an idiot to her core. “She hasn’t even come out and done her little speech yet!”

“Who?”

“The bear!”

“The what?”

**“** **Revue.”**

CuhLunk.

There it was. Right on her mark with her spotlight shining above: The pink bear.

“What is that thing?” Chisato’s voice stayed even, though she let disgust creep around the edges of the word _thing_.

“You never met Michelle?”

“Who?”

**“** **Revue of Vanity.** **Begin.** **”**

The curtain collapsed to the ground. It was the shortest preamble she’d ever given Moca: normally there was junk about stage girls and destiny and a bunch of stuff that didn’t apply to Moca. She didn’t give a crap about winning anyway.

But Chisato? It mattered to her a whole lot it seemed. More than she wanted Moca to know. The music would start pretty soon, she’d bear it all for Moca.

“What is this?”

“You _have_ fought before right?”

“Of course I have. My bouts never lasted more than a minute.”

“Jeez you beat them up before the music started? What a shit show.” Moca laughed at her own joke. “Guess we’ll discover your stage together.”

Chisato’s curiosity got the better of her, she turned and looked. “What is _that?”_

Center stage looked primed for the eleven thirty time slot. The plywood desk. The cheap couch. The fake Tokyo skyline set along the painted flats held up by sandbags and hope.

* * *

**{Revue of Vanity}**

**< Song: Late Night with Chisato Shirasagi>**

* * *

Somewhere far beyond the things that could be seen with eyes a trumpet started blaring. The unseen house band kicked off their jazzy tune with a toot and a blast and an expectation that one of them would take over as lead singer.

Instead, Chisato leveled her rapier. “It doesn’t matter. Not who you are or what nonsense that is.”

“Pretty sure that’s your nonsense.”

SWING.

Chisato was done talking, unfortunately for her, Moca never stopped and now she wanted to understand this ice queen’s deal even more. She darted for the set. “Come on doesn’t the music just make you want to dance?”

Moca pivoted around just in time to avoid getting skewered. She jumped backwards—trying to place the desk between them. The behind the scenes view revealed the thing to be hollow, hardly more than a propped up panel. Moca ducked behind the chair—at least it was solid, wood back and tacky corduroy cushion notwithstanding.

Chisato scowled, better than no emotion at least, and scoffed. “I don’t need music to dance.”

“That probably sounded cooler in your head—gah!” Moca misjudged Chisato’s reach. Badly. Her sword flew across the desk, piercing the air and it would have pierced Moca too if at that moment a mannequin hadn’t appeared in the chair in a polyester suit and a shitty combover—and now a rapier stuck in his face.

Somewhere a drum rolled.

Click. The lights vanished except for a spotlight over the mannequin—and Moca.

**So tell me whatcha hobbies?**

A male voice sung.

Click. The spotlight switched, highlighting one half of the empty couch as music underscored a vamp that was not happening.

Moca rolled out of the way, catching the transfixed look in Chisato’s eyes as she stared at the empty couch.

Click.

**What you watchin’ on TV?**

Moca snuck along the flats—thin walls of plywood and paint. Maybe her absence would strike some musicality into Chisato. What a pain, making Moca work for her evening’s entertainment.

Click.

The edge of the stage. It was almost impossible to see but Moca would be safe there. Unless— “Ow!”

Click.

**Your school work? Your friends? A guy you** **like ta** **see?**

Moca rubbed her nose and squinted into the darkness, trying to figure out what she’d smacked into. A hooded figure with one eerie glowing red eye stared back.

Click.

Moca scrambled, holding her dagger up like she knew how to use it, like it could actually do something against a massive hulking whatever that was.

Click.

**You like anythin’ at all?**

Clang. The lights and the music shut off together.

Clang. And then light shuddered back on around them, colored bursts of reds and pinks darting around the new set from unseen moving spotlights. The late night set was gone—along with the spot that had so transfixed Chisato—replaced with a cyclorama wall, a smooth curve painted in blurring colored lights suggesting an infinity inside a limited space and the letters “C” and “S” dotted with light bulbs and hanging from an invisible ceiling.

Moca saw what she’d taken for a monster in the dark for it’s true self, an old studio camera cloaked in a teleprompter hood with the red “on” light staring back at her. She stepped back as it began to stir to life.

“You!” The brass band flared back up with Chisato’s snarl like she was the wayward band leader they’d been listening to for a cue.

Moca didn’t need to look back to know Chisato was on her way and ready to rip her head off. Between the girl and the machine, Moca would choose the machine. She climbed onto the camera’s pedestal, flared like a stiff poodle skirt, and held on tight to the camera arms as it began to spin onto the stage joined by half a dozen others.

“Stop playing and fight me!” Chisato jumped out of a camera’s way and whirled around, searching for Moca amongst the identical whirling machines.

The music crescendoed into a chorus, ghostly backup singers crooning in accompaniment to the unsung song.

* _Just tell me what you want*_

“I am!” It was getting hard to speak without retching as the camera sped up with each rotation.

_*‘cause I can be anything*_

“You’re not fighting!” Chisato lunged, finding her astride the camera. “You’re _running._ ”

Moca crawled along to the front of the camera, balanced better than a cat on the pedestal. “You don’t want to listen to the song?” Dodge. “It’ll help you feel better!” Duck. “Might even help you get a girlfriend.”

“I don’t want ANY of those things!” She drove her blade forward—seemingly with every intent to pierce Moca’s heart but—

Smash!

_*_ _Please tell me what you want*_

Moca jumped off at the last moment, hitting the ground with a roll, and Chisato hit the camera instead, shattering the lens into a spiderweb of trapped glass. Chisato grit her teeth and turned to face her unwilling opponent as the cameras spun together into a wall. “Who do you think you are?”

_*_ _So I can be some thing*_

Moca laughed, almost offended, and shrugged with her dagger dangling on the edge of her finger tips. “Come on, I’m just your classmate.”

“You’re always playing those comedy roles aren’t you? Laughing with your friends while the rest of us work endlessly. Ran Mitake and…” She paused, hand tightening almost imperceptibly around her hilt. Moca’s breathing stuttered. “…that girl with the brown hair.”

Chisato’s words ran claws down Moca’s chest. It was one thing to not bother learning Moca’s name. What was the point in learning it? But Tsugumi? To call Tsugumi the girl with brown hair like she was some extra?

There were some things Moca Aoba didn’t want to forgive.

Her legs tensed. She brought the blade level with her chest. “It’s Tsugumi!” And Moca rocketed forward with a speed she’d never bothered to use before. “Tsugumi Hazawa.”

“Well then, Tsugumi Hazawa.” Chisato rose up to meet Moca’s attack. “It was nice to meet you.”

“No—” The dagger shrugged off Chisato’s sword. “The girl with the brown hair is Tsugumi Hazawa!” Clash! “My name is Moca Aoba.” Moca was a tornado and Chisato was the barn. She could fend off a few strikes but there was no end to how hard Moca could press. She’d rip Chisato apart first. Then she saw it.

Fear. There was fear in Chisato’s eyes. Because she realized just half a second before Moca, that Moca was about to win.

And as her dagger slipped past the rapier and into the cord around Chisato’s neck the lyrics to a song that wasn’t playing rose to Moca’s lips.

_I would tell you that I’m lying_

_But I don’t think you’d believe me._

The cape fell. The set vanished around them as if it'd never been there.

And Moca was still standing right over that little pink T marked out over center stage. Moca threw her dagger into the center, more dazed than proud and muttered.

“Position Zero.”

* * *

She lost. Chisato Shirasagi, top star of class 2-A, of the whole damn school, lost to Moca Aoba. It’d be better to lose to someone in the bottom of the class, someone she’d overlooked. Not the student in the straight damn middle of the pack she had to pretend to have forgotten to get her to do something.

“Hey? You okay?”

There was a hand in front of her—outreached in some overture of friendship. Here she was, the great child star Chisato Shirasagi finally on her knees as so many had wanted to see her and Moca didn’t have the decency to gloat.

She should be gracious. Take the hand as she had been trained to do. Behave. Be good. Just like the lyrics screaming in her head had said.

Smack.

Moca wasn’t shocked when Chisato stood by her own volition, raised her hand and slapped Moca across the face. Her eyes were already fixed over Chisato’s shoulder on the bear that shouldn’t exist.

“Get back here!” Moca shouted and ran, Chisato already an afterthought.

Exit: Moca pursuing a bear.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact, I wrote half of this chapter last February. I will hope beyond hope you cannot tell which part.


End file.
